Christ has given us the most striking example of the love of our enemies, for on the Cross He prayed for His enemies, and in the Garden of Olives He healed the servant whose ear Peter had cut off. Our heavenly Father Himself sets us an example, for He makes His sun to rise upon the good and bad, and raineth upon the just and the unjust. He who loves his enemy therefore is like to God; he is a true child of his Father in Heaven (Matt. v. 45).

Another reason why we ought to love our enemy is because he also is made after God\’s image, and is an instrument in His hand.

Our enemy is made after God\’s likeness. The king\’s effigy stamped upon the coin, is equally deserving of respect whether the coin be of copper or gold; so we are bound to love and honor the image of God, whether the man who bears it be vicious or virtuous. It is not the sin we love, but the sinner. Man is God\’s work, sin is man\’s work; \”therefore,\” says St. Augustine, \”love what God has made, not what man has done.\” We ought also to love our enemy because God uses him as His instrument. Evil men, unwittingly to themselves, are instruments in God\’s hands. As the physician employs the leech to draw the bad blood from the veins of the sick man, and effect his cure, so God employs our enemies to remove our imperfections (St. Gregory the Great). The evil shapes the good, as file and hammer shape iron: they are to them as the plough to the fallow ground (St. John Chrysostom). They are, moreover, of service to us, by acquainting us with our faults and giving us an opportunity of practicing virtue. Enemies are like bees; they sting, but they produce honey. [Ibid.] When calumny assails you, console yourself with the thought that it is not the worst fruits that the wasps devour. Finally remember that no enemy can really injure one who loves God; for God makes all hostile designs work good to His Own people (Rom. viii. 28). This is exemplified in Joseph\’s life. The truth will teach you to bear up against persecution.

ST. STEPHEN

2. The love of our enemy is shown in this: That we do not revenge ourselves on him, that we return good for evil, that we pray for him and forgive him willingly.

We ought not to revenge ourselves on our enemy. David gives us a beautiful example, for he twice had the opportunity of putting his persecutor King Saul, to death, and on neither occasion did he do him any harm. Our Lord, when He was reviled, did not revile again (1 Pet. ii. 23). Once when Christ was not received in a Samaritan village because He was a Jew, the Apostles were so desirous of revenge that they wanted to call down fire from Heaven. But Our Lord rebuked them, saying: \”You know not of what spirit you are\” (Luke ix. 55). Vengeance belongs to God, not to us (Rom. xii. 19). We ought to suffer wrong rather than take revenge; we are told, to him that striketh thee on the one cheek offer the other (Luke vi. 29). Be not overcome by evil, but overcome evil by good (Rom. xii. 21). Avenge yourself, as the Saints did, by returning benefits for the evil done you; such vengeance is Divine. St. Stephen prayed for his murderers; he was more grieved for the harm they did to themselves than for the injury they did to him. When the Apostle James, Bishop of Jerusalem, was thrown from the pinnacle of the Temple, he raised himself on his fractured knees to pray for his murderers. We should also be ready to forgive our enemies. King David forgave Semei, when he threw stones at him and cursed him (2 Kings xvi. 10). To do good to one\’s enemy is a proof of great magnanimity.

3. He who does not revenge himself on his enemy, or who even confers benefits upon him, puts his foe to shame and pacifies him, and will be rewarded by God; whereas he who hates his enemy and revenges himself on him commits a sin.

Like this:

Everyone knows I am so in love with flowers and especially edible ones. France is such a treasure of candied flower treats! I want to create something special and I am listening in my heart for the flavors, colors and soul of Saint Marie De Monfort’s birth place to inspire me.

Today I am exploring the scents, music, flowers and soul of the region where Saint Louis Marie De Monfort was born. Everyone knows I am so in love with flowers and especially edible ones. France is such a treasure of candied flower treats!

I want to create something special and I am listening in my heart for the flavors, colors and soul of Saint Louis Marie De Monfort’s birth place to inspire me. I first think of strawberries, vanilla and a magical golden effortless syrup of music.

There is a wonderful golden tea from Darjeeling. I was only able to purchase 1 kilo. It was rare and so delightful. These precious teas, do not need the addition of flowers really, because they were fed flowers from the inception of their first seedlings by the Gods and the Snow Leopards at night. The mountains of the Himalaya’s are utterly fecund with a delicate fiery grace within the air itself. The soil has a rich yet delicate spice. The magnolias and magical plants are in fact the base for Mary Magdalene’s famous ointment.

Alas? Now…. I have an idea? perhaps’ I will try to acquire some of this precious tea and make a special batch of candy and desserts strawberries and flowers in Saint Marie de Montfort. I pray for his bright blessings upon us and especially for someone special, that he hear our prayers.

This is a magical site, I do so adore. It is filled with the love, merriment, vigor and expertise of a wise group of magicians.

Like this:

viii. Goddess of the SwanThe Irish Brigid or Bridget, Scottish Bride, or Manx Bree, or Breeshey derive from a common root, a female deity who almost certainly served as the tutelary goddess for the first Iron Age peoples to enter Britain in the first millennium BC. Her cult lingered through until Romano-British times, most obviously as the divine patron of the Brigantes, the powerful northern tribe famously led at the time of the Roman conquest by the warrior queen Cartamandua.

With the arrival of Christianity Brigid became a saint, celebrated as Jesus’s nursemaid, and sometimes even as his mother under the name ‘Mary of the Gaels’. St Bride, or Bridget, bore an assortment of animal forms, but by far the most significant is that of the white swan.

In her role as patron of childbirth, Bride-Bridget was associated with the Milky Way, where the celestial swan flies, and her mark was the bird’s foot, anticipated by peoples of the Scottish Western Isles in their hearth on the morning of her feast day. This same symbol was associated by Welsh bards and druids with the goddess Minerva, the given to the Gallic form of Brigantia, or Brigid, by the Romans.

Yet what might any of this have to do with Avebury’s cult of the dead?A more direct association between swans and the northerly transmigration of the soul comes in the knowledge that in the Scottish Western Isles people saw whooper swans and also greylag geese migrating northwards to their breeding grounds in Iceland each spring as carrying the souls of the dead to heaven, which lay ‘north beyond the north wind’, an expression borrowed from classical mythology.

Should a person be alive when the birds depart, then they would be free from death for another year. Cygnus being essentially circumpolar in Scotland would always have been seen in the northern night sky.

Is this how the stars of Cygnus became associated with the swan, and why the bird was linked with not only the cosmic axis, but also the journey of the soul into the afterlife – because it was seen to fly towards the celestial pole? If so, then this connection can only have begun when Deneb occupied the position of Pole Star in c. 15,000 BC. Swans in flight.Among the peoples of the Baltic the swan replaced the stork as the bringer of new-born babies,

showing that it both brought life and took it away again. This process of giving and taking life is exemplified at Çatal Huyuk in Southern-central Turkey where Neolithic wall sculptures contain vulture’s skulls inserted horizontally so that the tips become the nipples of sculpted breasts, while murals nearby show human foetuses inside the bodies of vultures.The cult of Bride-Bridget exemplified these archaic beliefs, and these survived through until the nineteenth century in the Scottish Western Isles.

However, evidence of her worship in England has been scant until now. Yet archaeologists working in South-west England have recently unearthed macabre evidence of a pagan cult of the swan, possibly associated with the goddess Bride-Bridget, which survived through until the 1640s. It comes in the form of a series of earthen pits unearthed at Saveock, Cornwall, and found to contain carcasses of swans, as well as other votive offerings such as eggs, down feathers, crystals and stones.

It is important to recall that at this time England was under Puritan rule, with the punishment for any kind of sympathetic folk magic being very severe indeed.In Britain, the cult of the swan is likely to have come under the protection of Bride, whose feast day, 1st February, marked thenorthern departure of the migrating swans. Yet her worship proved to be only half the story, for a whole different cult of the swan once surrounded the return of the birds each November, a fact echoed in an archaic ceremony that continues each year on the River Thames.Links Events News Books Cygnus Meonia QuestCon Articles Email

Saint Michael is also associated with the “soul of a man” his deep connection with this life and the after life. There are times when the angels, the Saints, and even the honey bees call upon man to hear their divine decrees. To preserve life and the sanctify of justice. The protection of all that is full of life and goodness. My road with the swans and it’s sublime beauty is unveiling itself thru the Goddess and Saint of Swans Saint Bridgit! I love you, and ask your protection, illumination and courage.

Like this:

I can’t wait for my hate fans to eat up my new passion, which is reading the angry Sister Wolf’s blog called Godammit I’m Mad! I am so entertained, refreshed and my soul is strangely exfoliated and the epidermal existence of my everlasting “CAUL” is nourished.

The Caul, I was so-called born with, according to my father, Voodoo Daddy.

Is there a “Cauler-ID” for mystical face veils. What the hell is she talking about! Well, A caul is a thin membrane of transparent skin that is shimmering like star stuff. So-called, once in a blue moon babies are born with. The birth of a child with a caul is a sigil that your child might be able to possess psychic abilities :according to local legends in New Orleans and others. A folk legend, that just might originate in Africa and the threads of voodoo practices, brought to America by the earliest Africans.

A right-wing henchman might call it an ET jelly you put, when you put those “Please behave and act normal electrodes on your temples! What I find so interesting about right-wing angry people is that ? They have a sort of “imagination cloud computing” domain which incorporates and encompasses all issues which just don’t fit into their allopathic search and destroy algorhymes. This category is the Science Fiction anything goes, as long as it’s kept in outer space. It’s ok if it’s wierd and kinky because it’s just Science Fiction and I can keep all my “don’t make sense” emotions and universal questions about life there! The lovely banished untouchable deliciousness of that icloud chocolate space box! Just like I need to work out my abs? They need to work out their imaginations, and take a whorl on the magical mystery tour of the Yoruba’s! It opens of my mind and thank you Sister Wolf!

But, for us magically romantic sods? A mystical caul, is in olden New Orleans’ days: A sign that your child will be touched by the spiritual realms and just know shit for no reason, without any particular social skills. It’s kind of like a pesticide for warding off paranoid smiling people! The smiling people that fear, you might say something knowing and make them VERY uncomfortable. My former boss, she once said to me. ” You know Fumiko? You scare people, you know? You don’t realize it but you seem to just know things that you don’t realize that you know or what they are connected to and this scares people” I promptly said that “As long as it scares you and keeps you as far away from me as possible and that I get a bigger pay check? You can call me a Voodoo baby”

She laughed and believe me, you needed a magical potion to keep this women from beginning to chomp on your elbow or eat your eyeballs. There is no scarier revenge of the bitten, as my once upon a time Lady Mobster Boss! All, I can say is that Terrence Stamp said that perhaps’ he would visit us and have a spot’ of tea…. when he had a bit more courage and some black widow repellant” ! I have to admit, I was always a bit jealous of her power to incinerate everyone’s egos. But, Sister Wolf might hunt me down and scourge me, but it will be worth it! Her blog is so great and I love her mind. She is amazing. I could never articulate the ideology of international “ancestor worship” as she is able to here. Her blog in general is capital “R” for Ranting, galloping marvelous. You know when people tell “their” truths? It is so very necessary and cosmic. It has a cathartic omnipotent Zen potion beyond compare. So Thank you Sister Wolf! A great compliment to my at times messy soul blog which rambles in no amoeba direction as of late. I know she at heart is a deeply romantic soul with very thick armor! She will need it, in her blazing trails into the bullshit of life that she reports, nothing but her truths and that takes a lot of guts. Thank you Sister Wolf for “not allowing” me to reprint this great piece on the Yoruba religion.

Share this:

Like this:

Incorrectly known as BRIDGET.Born in 451 or 452 of princely ancestors at Faughart, near Dundalk, County Louth; d. 1 February, 525, at Kildare. Refusing many good offers of marriage, she became a nun and received the veil from St. Macaille. With seven other virgins she settled for a time at the foot of Croghan Hill, but removed thence to Druin Criadh, in the plains of Magh Life, where under a large oak tree she erected her subsequently famous Convent of Cill-Dara, that is, “the church of the oak” now Kildare, in the present county of that name. It is exceedingly difficult to reconcile the statements of St. Brigids biographers, but the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Lives of the saint are at one in assigning her a slave mother in the court of her father Dubhthach, and Irish chieftain of Leinster. Probably the most ancient life of St. Brigid is that by St. Broccan Cloen, who is said to have died 17 September, 650. It is metrical, as may be seen from the following specimen:Ni bu Sanct Brigid suanach Ni bu huarach im sheire Dé, Sech ni chiuir ni cossens Ind nóeb dibad bethath che.Saint Brigid was not given to sleep, Nor was she intermittent about Gods love; Not merely that she did not buy, she did not seek for The wealth of this world below, the holy one.Cogitosus, a monk of Kildare in the eighth century, expounded the metrical life of St. Brigid, and versified it in good Latin. This is what is known as the “Second Life”, and is an excellent example of Irish scholarship in the mid-eighth century. Perhaps the most interesting feature of Cogitosuss work is the description of the Cathedral of Kildare in his day: “Solo spatioso et in altum minaci proceritate porruta ac decorata pictis tabulis, tria intrinsecus habens oratoria ampla, et divisa parietibus tabulatis”. The rood-screen was formed of wooden boards, lavishly decorated, and with beautifully decorated curtains. Probably the famous Round Tower of Kildare dates from the sixth century. Although St. Brigid was “veiled” or received by St. Macaille, at Croghan, yet, it is tolerably certain that she was professed by St. Mel of Ardagh, who also conferred on her abbatial powers. From Ardagh St. Macaille and St. Brigid followed St. Mel into the country of Teffia in Meath, including portions of Westmeath and Longford. This occurred about the year 468. St. Brigids small oratory at Cill-Dara became the centre of religion and learning, and developed into a cathedral city. She founded two monastic institutions, one for men, and the other for women, and appointed St. Conleth as spiritual pastor of them. It has been frequently stated that she gave canonical jurisdiction to St. Conleth, Bishop of Kildare, but, as Archbishop Healy points out, she simply “selected the person to whom the Church gave this jurisdiction”, and her biographer tells us distinctly that she chose St. Conleth “to govern the church along with herself”. Thus, for centuries, Kildare was ruled by a double line of abbot-bishops and of abbesses, the Abbess of Kildare being regarded as superioress general of the convents in Ireland.

Share this:

Like this:

A woman rides a decorated horse to obtain blessings for men and beasts at the St. George church near Traunstein, southern Germany, on Monday, April 25, 2011. The traditional procession has been held on Easter Monday for over 300 years. AP Photo/Matthias Schrader #